


Through the Ghost

by alternatively_undesignated



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: (kinda), Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Character Death, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Sexism, Spiritualism, Suicidal Thoughts, Supernatural Elements, Swearing, lots and lots of swearing, tags and warnings updated as i go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-08 08:00:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21472678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alternatively_undesignated/pseuds/alternatively_undesignated
Summary: What his family saw as a gift was nothing but a curse to Snafu. Something he had been burdened with till his dying day. He didn't like the people he helped using his 'gift' but he had no other choice in the matter. Help them or be stuck with them.His boy needed his help. And all he wanted to do was refuse his pleas.....Or Snafu can see dead people and now he's seeing Eugene.
Relationships: Merriell "Snafu" Shelton/Eugene Sledge
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	Through the Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> Started as a one shot but my brain was like 'Add this. And this. Don't forget some of this.'  
Also based of the actors portrayal and not the real life men and women. I hope this does not offend anyone, my apologise if i do.

Life had become a routine for him.

Work. Drink. Smoke. Survive. Everyday the same since he arrived in Alabama. Even before he moved here his life was slowly killing him from routine.

At night was the only time that things would change for him. Ever so slightly.

It’d start out the same every time. He’d stub out the last cigarette of the day, discard his dirty clothing to the floor as a problem for tomorrow, and slump into bed and wait for the sun to rise. Most night he didn’t remember falling asleep other nights he’d toss and turn for hours without closing his eyes once.

“_Help me.”_

On good nights he'd hear nothing. But without fail since he'd rolled into Alabama he heard a voice without fail. 

Faint at first like a whisper in a tree. But with time the more he tried to ignore it the louder it would become leaving him no choice but to answer. Forced to only use the few words it could to reach out for help.

Back in New Orleans he’d at least had other people around he could go to too annoy into distracting him. Here he had no one he could turn too ‘cept for another pack of cigarettes and the gun he’d stored in the night stand.

“_Help me.” _

Why he had thought that the change in location would help his war muddled mind he didn’t know. Especially not by coming to this town. There was no choice but to get out of New Orleans altogether, the people there gave him no other option, and his wallet wasn’t full enough to get too far away. A fresh start was what he needed a chance for some changes that he could dictate and control.

But nothing had changed. He couldn’t make enough changes to stop everything he was from following him. He would forever be seen as the haunted man or unwanted child. Not the town mechanic or handy man but someone who was wrong in the head. That’s who he always would be a fucked up individual who’d do nothing but leave a history of fuck ups behind him.

Merriell Shelton: Situation Normal, All Fucked Up.

And fucked up he was.

“_Please...help me?”_

His family called it the ‘gift’ this fucked up ability of his. A gift handed to him down his blood line as an inheritance. To him it was nothing but a curse handed down by the people who didn’t give much of a shit about him to begin with.

When Ma announced she was close to her end she’d gathered them all round for the speech. She’d told them what to expect, how to cope with the change, and more importantly what was expected of them to do. Everyone had assumed that Roe would inherit since he was the healer. He had the soul least impacted by the war. The one who could still look others in the eye without disgust and anger.

It sounded ridicules to say it aloud, ‘Hi I’m Merriell Shelton, I speak with the dead to solve their problems,’ like he was some afterlife Agony-Anne. Yet that was his new duty in life, another one that he could add to the list of duties he had been forced into accepting. Help the dead move on to their next life.

“_Please…__.”_

Surviving the war came with a few certainties. When he sighed up there where things he knew he would be coming home with. If he got home. He would return as a different person, someone nothing alike the man who had left, should he survive and there would be ghosts that would follow him back home. He had just thought that those ghosts would be metaphorical and not literal.

Or that every night someone dead would appear to him, keeping him from sleep, until he eventually caved to their demands for help. Spirits, ghosts, apparitions, souls who couldn’t move on on their own. The lazy arses needed his help to accomplish some shit they didn’t before they died.

“Fuck this,” Merriell cursed as he threw himself up off the bed and headed for the rooms balcony. The thought of sleep was far from his mind now as he knew all he would hear for the rest of the night was the ghosts pleas. This ‘gift’ would never allow him another night of rest so long as it was his burden to carry. “You can’t give me one night to rest can you?”

Grabbing his pack of cigarette’s and lighter he let the cold air cool his warm skin. With a deep breath filled with nicotine he learned back with his hands on the rail stopping him from falling on his arse.

Running from the Bayou, there had been a thought in his mind that the distance would some how disconnect him from the gifts reaches. It was another reason for him to high tail it away from his home. But the little money he had had run out fast leaving him in this little town with not much but enough to get a place to lay his head.

Finding a job had been easy. The place was still recovering from their losses in the war, a lot of boys had gone and not come back leaving jobs empty and not many to take their place. He’d found one the day his car cut out in the town, the hotel’s handy man was getting on in life and couldn’t do as many jobs as before. The pay wasn’t all that good but it kept him stocked in cig’s and bottles for company, and a few other indulgences. A room and food came with the work which was handy. It would take him awhile to save enough money before he could think about leaving again.

“_Please...”_

The urge to leave unprepared was strong within him however.

This new soul tormented him stronger then any of the few before it. The others had all been old with simple favours to ask him. This one was young. The others he had barely know but this one he knew too well. This one had no reason to be dead. It had survived horrors unimaginable, returned home to a life that was supposed to be better yet something terrible had gone wrong.

The thought had come to him the first night he heard that far too recognisable voice that it had been a trap. The world had set this up as a punishment for his actions during the war.Another factor of this curse he had been blessed with, a punishment so cruel and twisted it shook him to his core.

If was forced now to believe in their being such a thing as ghosts then what was there to stop him thinking of all the other mumbo jumbo Ma would spill on about. Cosmic energy dictating how he would lead his life. How those cosmic energies had found the one soul he would do anything for and twisted it to punish him. Set a trap to lead him here where he would stumble upon his own defeat.

It would be no problem for him to leave now. Forget this place and his burnt out car, take the little shit he had on him and catch the next train as far away fro here and this spirit as he could.

“_Please… Help me?”_

That’s not how it worked for him however. The arrangement between realms was as such, once a soul had made contact with him even if he didn’t answer at first he was duty bound to serve them. It was a duty he had surly been fucked over with as he had no say in any of it. A duty his blood line was forced into until some unwritten contract had been fulfilled.

“_Please...”_

“Yes I heard you before,” He hissed at the voice behind him. Turning back to the room after throwing the forgotten cigarette off the balcony he said with a light voice, “I will always hear you.”

It burned inside of him how much he had craved to hear that voice one more time since the second he had walked away from it. Not a single day had gone by where he hadn’t longed to hear that sweet voice say the simplest of words to him. It had burned inside of him for a year and now that it was happening he hated it.

Walking away had been a hard decision to make. He had spent most of their time together in the war trying to protect the pure soul that had walked into their tent. He knew when they parted he had done his duty which is why he knew he could leave. Leave him behind before his own soul could corrupt his.

“I shouldn’t have come here,” he whispered to the spirit. He still half expected a comment back, a sarcastic come back that would make him laugh and smile.

The second that his car had broken he should have walked out of town. Then he would never have seen the posters, never would have heard the story of the missing Vet, never would have let his heart broke so badly for a second time.

“I say your name and I see you and...” He looked away from the room turning to look back out of the balcony. Looking down he could see one of the posters now, if he squinted his eyes just enough he could make out the writing below the image.

Eugene Sledge, Missing.

“I don’t want you to be dead.”


End file.
